How we connect to the environment

Utilities are our business. But they are more than that – they’re essential for life and for businesses to thrive.

However, the availability and quality of resources like power, connectivity, water, materials and even the air we breathe depends on all our attitudes and actions - now and in future. All the utilities our customers use not only have a financial cost but also an environmental cost. They impact on climate change, as well as other aspects of the environment like natural habitats, air quality and pollution.

Even in regions with seemingly abundant supplies, we’re already experiencing rising prices and threats to our resources, including war, drought, flooding, pollution, and ageing infrastructure. These challenges will only increase if populations continue to grow, climate change is allowed to continue, and people and businesses don’t change how we use, re-use and manage our resources.

But as a utilities retailer, Everflow can help our customers better understand the challenges their markets and communities face regarding the utilities they use and the environment. We want to help customers use resources efficiently, in a way that also saves them money, effort and time. Doing this will also help our customers to stay ahead of the trend of ever tightening regulation and enforcement – an important competitive advantage.

Our commitments

As with everything we do, the way we help our customers protect the environment will always aim to deliver excellent service, for a good price, as simply as possible. We anticipate that tougher environmental legislation and regulation are essential and inevitable, and wish to prepare our customers for the future. 

We’ll protect and improve the environment by:

Promoting environmentally conscious behaviour by offering products and services to support customers

A large proportion of business sites and utilities infrastructure were developed before the need to carefully manage the utilities we use. Now that populations have increased, as well as how much power, water and materials people use, businesses need advice and retrofitted devices and systems to help reduce their consumption.

We’ll:

• Strive to offer environmentally beneficial utilities as standard, by developing smart software and collaborating with innovative partners to develop leading services in the field;
• Inform customers about environmental issues relating to the utilities we supply, and why and simple ways how they need to act, and
• Work with customers in a targeted and tailored way to reduce their resource use and improve their impact on the environment

 

Demonstrating responsible environmental behaviour in the way we manage our business

It’s important that we ‘walk the talk’ so that we can base our advice to customers on experience, innovate and lead in this field.

We’ll:

• Ensure employees and our business premises are equipped to use utilities and resources efficiently – both at home and at work;
• Encourage employees to make carbon and resource conscious choices
• Influence our suppliers and partners to improve their impact on the environment, and

• Where there are conflicts or trade-offs are required, be transparent about our choices and take customers’ views and best interests into account.

Investing some of our profits in protecting and improving the environment

We’re a private company and therefore need most of our activity to be profitable or cost neutral for us to remain a sustainable business. However, we recognise that not all our activities to support the environment can be profitable, at least not straight away.

In 2021, Everflow was the first retailer to make all our customers’ water and wastewater supplies carbon neutral. We also signed The Climate Pledge, which commits us to being net zero carbon by 2040 across Scopes 1, 2 and 3 of the GHG Protocol - ten years ahead of The Paris Agreement (2050). We’ll report annually on our progress against Science Based Targets on our Sustainability page of our website.

We’ll continue to:

• Invest in projects which seek to protect and improve the environment through innovation, and
• Offset carbon emissions associated with our activities that we have not yet managed to eliminate

 

Collaborating with the industry to ensure that every business has access to smart monitoring of key utilities

Smart meters are essential for measuring how much energy and water customers are using in real time to detect wasteful usage fast, so customers can make changes that save them money and put less pressure on utilities networks and resources.

Smart meters empower customers to manage their impact on the environment by making them more aware of their energy and water use. They also help customers receive more accurate bills and save money because more processes can be automated and done remotely. For example, reading meters.

We’ll:

• Work in partnership to offer smart metering options (smart meters, data logger attachments or other innovations) to our customers as part of our service offering;
• Advocate a national approach to delivering smart metering for every business customer, and

• Strive for solutions for customers who don’t have a water meter for whom the cost isn’t justified, including alternatives to meters, to identify leaks and encourage them to use less water.

Working with the wider utilities industry on environmental issues

As a retailer, we can communicate with, support, influence and learn from many others both inside and outside the utilities industry. We appreciate that our customers’ time is valuable, so will coordinate our efforts to avoid duplicate communications from others.

We’ll:

• Continually research trends and innovations that can help utilities customers protect the environment;
• Support national resource saving and other environmental campaigns;
• Collaborate with wholesale companies and other suppliers to encourage environmental action and deliver shared environmental goals, and

• Influence policy makers and regulators as they develop their directions on environmental action in the utilities industry.

We believe our environmental ambitions are already attracting the best customers to our organisation, as well as suppliers, investors and talent. Sustainability is the foundation upon which we can continue to be the best and do the right thing, while growing fast. We believe this is best delivered by setting meaningful targets and monitoring and reporting results against an adaptive strategy.

We expect to launch our new holistic Sustainability Strategy in Q2 2023.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions about this Environmental Policy, please contact makemegreener@everflowwater.com